Garegin Abramovich Apresov (; 6 January 1890 – 11 September 1941) was a multifaceted figure of the Soviet era — a revolutionary, diplomat, intelligence officer, and Comintern representative whose work lay at the intersection of politics, ideology, and intelligence, particularly in the context of Asian affairs. Before joining the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, he had extensive experience in political activities, including work in the government of Baku commissars, as well as active participation in the communist movement. As an expert on the East, he proved himself effective in operational work and propaganda. He worked in the USSR missions in Persia and China, holding posts including Chargé d'Affaires of the USSR in Persia, Consul General of the USSR in Urumqi and authorized representative of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) for Xinjiang (China). With personal access to Joseph Stalin, at the peak of his activities in Xinjiang, he had exceptional powers, effectively being the key representative of Soviet interests in the region. He was shot as part of Stalin's repressions.
Early years Garegin A. Apresov (Apresoff, Apresof) was born to an Armenian family in Qusar in what was then Baku Governorate in Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire. His parents lived in Baku, but they had a dacha in Qusar. However, according to his own autobiographies, he was born in Baku. As a 6th grade student at the gymnasium, in 1908 he joined the revolutionary movement. He took part in Baku-wide strikes, publishing leaflets and a student magazine. At the end of 1908, the Baku gendarmerie conducted a search of the Apresovs' house, and G. A. Apresov was arrested. He spent several days under arrest.
He studied law at the Moscow University and graduated in 1914. In Moscow he also took part in student protests.
In 1915 he was called up for military serviceАпресов, Гарегин Абрамович. Энциклопедия фонда «Хайазг». and served as a soldier on the Caucasian Front in the city of Kars. He was later sent to the ensign school in Tiflis. After finishing school, he served on the Persian border in the Cavalry Border Regiment, from where, for anti-war work among the soldiers, he was transferred under supervision to the detachment headquarters and appointed to the position of adjutant of the headquarters.
Apresov spoke several foreign languages (mainly Eastern).
After the 1917 revolution
Among the Baku commissars From 1917 to 1918 Apresov was the President of the Lankaran Municipal Council near the border with Persia in the territory of modern Azerbaijan, where he was caught up in the February Revolution.
In March 1918 he was named a member of a government's directorate in Baku and later a member of the Directorate for Food in Baku. He provided assistance in organizing food supplies to Baku, which was experiencing a severe food crisis. In Baku Apresov interacted with Prokofy Dzhaparidze and Hamid Sultanov.
Volga region From 1918 Apresov was the member of the Revolutionary Tribunal in Saratov, where, according to his autobiography, he moved due to illness.
Apresov joined the Communist Party in 1918.Апресов Георгий (Гарегин) Абрамович
From 1918 to 1919 he was the Leader of the Provincial Justice Department in Saratov. He was a member of a communist special forces unit and took part in suppressing uprisings against the Bolsheviks.
Caucassus In 1920, he was involved in underground activity in the Caucasus. Before the Sovietization of Azerbaijan, he worked for the underground Regional Committee, carrying out special tasks for the latter, which mainly boiled down to organizing the financial and monetary operations of the Regional Committee.
From 1921 to 1921, Apresov served as Deputy People's Commissar for Justice of the Azerbaijan SSR and as a commander of a brigade of the Red Army, head of the border troops.
Between 1921 and 1922 Apresov was a member of the Collegiate of the People's Commissars for Justice in the Georgian SSR.
Work in Persia
From 1922 to 1923 Apresov served as the Soviet Consul in Rasht, Persia, from 1924 to 1925 in Isfahan, Persia, and from 1923 to 1926 in Mashhad, Persia. He was also a Soviet Interim Commissioner for Persia (1923–24).
Apresov was described by British diplomats as an ardent communist and energetic propagandist. According to their testimony, the governor of Gilan Nayer es Sultan was completely "under the thumb" of Apresov and supported the communist program.
According to defector G.S. Agabekov, in addition to diplomatic posts, Apresov was a representative of the Foreign Department of the Joint State Political Directorate (INO OGPU) as well as an emissary of Soviet military intelligence and the Comintern (he was an employee of the Executive Committee of the Comintern.) G.S. Agabekov spoke about G.A. Apresov as follows:Apresov, holding the position of Soviet consul and resident, was simultaneously a representative of the Military Intelligence Directorate and the Comintern and brought the work in Meshed to the proper level. A lawyer by training, very intelligent, well versed in the psychology of the East, fluent in Persian and the Turkic dialect, loving risk and adventure, he was created by nature to work in the OGPU in the East. In addition, he had some practice in his work. While being the Soviet consul in Rasht, he managed to steal the consul's archive through the mistress of the English consul in Rasht, thereby winning the full trust of this institution.
Apresov got to work, and by the middle of 1923, copies of all the secret correspondence of the British consulate in Meshed with the British envoy in Tehran and with the Indian general staff began to arrive from him.
...Despite Apresov’s successes, the OGPU was not satisfied with him, because he sent copies of his reports to the Military Intelligence Directorate and the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, and the OGPU likes to have a monopoly on information.The episode of the theft of documents also appears in the intelligence summary sent by the British envoy Percy Loraine to the British Foreign Secretary George Curzon in January 1923. In it, Loraine directly accuses Apresov of organizing the theft, but at the same time claims that the secret documents remained intact.
Apresov actively worked with the Armenian diaspora in Persia and tried to influence the church policy of the local Armenian church. The Dashnak Committee in Persia, which had significant influence on church structures, even considered the possibility of moving the episcopal see from Isfahan in order to counteract Apresov's pressure.
Contemporaries noted that during his time in Persia, Apresov was distinguished by his assertive and often confrontational style of conducting business. British diplomatic dispatches from 1923, dedicated to the conflict surrounding the wife of the Russian White Russian émigré, Maria Denisova, describe a scandal within the walls of the Soviet consulate in Mashhad: after a verbal altercation, Apresov demanded her arrest and deportation, and then, according to the British, sought intervention from the central authorities and even broke off official relations with the governor of Khorasan, insisting on his demands. The same documents noted his active intervention in local political processes (particularly in the context of the Majlis elections and the activities of the "Khorasan Union"). Further details about the consul's image are contained in the oral recollections of Iranian figure Abol Hassan Ebtehaj, who claims that, on Apresov's orders, Soviet consulate staff in Rasht resorted to harsh pressure on an Iranian lawyer defending a local resident in a dispute with an unnamed Soviet citizen, even going so far as to detain him in the consulate's basement.
Despite his energy and ingenuity, in 1926 Apresov was summoned to Moscow and removed from his post after what the center considered to be a mistake in his political analysis of the uprising in Khorasan.
In 1927 Apresov was characterized by the plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Persia, K.K. Yurenev, as an excellent intelligence officer, but also as an employee somewhat inclined to self-promotion and adventurism. Nevertheless, he was recommended by Yurenev for "serious work".
Work in the USSR Between September 1927 and July 1928, Apresov served as a member of the Military Collegiate of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, but resigned at his own request.
From 1927 to 1932 he was a People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID) agent in Baku.
He was NKID's plenipotentiary before the Council of People's Commissars of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1929 and the Uzbek SSR and the Soviet Central Asia in 1930.
In a handwritten explanation of plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Persia, K.K. Yurenev's 1927 character reference, which was added to it in the archives of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), his position or status is listed as “authorized representative in Turkestan for border issues”. It is known that in 1928, Apresov participated in the creation of a special “Eastern Department” at the Society for the Study of Azerbaijan in Baku, which was engaged in studying the political and socio-economic situation in neighboring Eastern countries, including Iran and Turkey, as well as preparing analytical materials and bulletins on current events.
There is a mention of Apresov giving lectures on tactics in Central Asia at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East.
Work in China
In 1933, Apresov was appointed Consul General of the USSR with special powers in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China. According to some sources, he was also a resident of the INO OGPU.
The 1930s were marked by a period of close cooperation between the USSR and the government of Sheng Shicai in Xinjiang, which ensured Xinjiang's de facto protectorate status under the auspices of the USSR. Following his appointment, Apresov soon became the "grey cardinal" in Sheng Shicai's court and the primary operator of Soviet policy in Xinjiang; he personally participated in the political reorganization of the entire region and oversaw military and economic aid to the region.
According to Sheng's adjutant, Zhao Jiangfeng, during the Islamic field commander Ma Zhongying's offensive on Urumqi in the winter of 1933–34, Sheng summoned Apresov every day or two at night for meetings, urging him to expedite the introduction of Soviet troops. Apresov did indeed play a key role in that crisis: in January 1934, Red Army units were secretly introduced into Xinjiang, disguised as the "Altai Volunteer Army." The operation was led by the head of the GUPO and V/OGPU, M. P. Frinovsky, with whom Apresov had had a hostile relationship since both of their time working in Baku in 1930. Thanks to Apresov's efforts and the large-scale Soviet intervention, by the spring of 1934, the threat of Sheng Shicai's fall had been removed, and Soviet influence in the region had reached its peak.
Apresov acted as the Kremlin's trusted intermediary in dialogue with Sheng Shicai, conveying to him the position of the USSR's top leadership. Thus, on July 27, 1934, Stalin, Molotov, and Voroshilov sent Apresov a coded telegram with detailed instructions for Sheng Shicai. In this message, through the consul, they assured the Xinjiang ruler that "the USSR stands firmly and unwaveringly on the integrity of China and has no territorial claims, either direct or indirect, against China."